What is your opinion on the songs marked "clean" or "explicit" on iTunes, Beatport (dunno about it) blahblah, or whatever? Do you buy songs only if it's marked "clean" or the lyrics have no swear words, or do you buy whatever song without caring about those words?

To me "explicit" means "Warning! Contains crappy music." That's my experience of music with explicit lyrics labels for the most part. My experience is that explicit lyrics are disproportionately found in bad music. But I don't buy music without having an idea of what I'm getting first, whether it's from listening to some of the songs first or just being familiar with the artist, so a label of "explicit" isn't really going to change my mind since I'm already 99% sure of what I'm doing.

To me "explicit" means "Warning! Contains crappy music." That's my experience of music with explicit lyrics labels for the most part. My experience is that explicit lyrics are disproportionately found in bad music.

That... is a point of view I really, really can't agree with one bit. Or even understand quite honestly. The second you branch out in music a bit you'll find that some of it becomes explicit because the artists don't have to care about being acceptable on the wider scale and can say whatever they want to, more or less. Plus you're almost eliminating gigantic areas of music, entire genres, by saying that if it's explicit it's, uh, crappy. As well as your definition of 'crappy' meaning very little since no one person is qualified to say what music is objectively good or objectively bad. It sounds like you just don't like offensive content.

For me, 'explicit' means it has themes or words which could be offensive. It says absolutely nothing about the quality of the music itself. So it follows that if the music is explicit I don't really care and I'll still listen to it lol.

I agree with Razor Leaf 500% here. Only two or three albums in my iTunes are entirely clean but I find that I personally enjoy the more 'explicit' albums more, because it's so much more uninhibited and common among the genres I enjoy.

Personally, I don't care how clean or how explicit a song is. If I like it, then I like it. I could listen to the most G-rated music and go to listen to Eminem the next minute, I seriously don't care.

Plus it's a whole other debate as far as 'good music' and 'bad music' goes.

That... is a point of view I really, really can't agree with one bit. Or even understand quite honestly. The second you branch out in music a bit you'll find that some of it becomes explicit because the artists don't have to care about being acceptable on the wider scale and can say whatever they want to, more or less. Plus you're almost eliminating gigantic areas of music, entire genres, by saying that if it's explicit it's, uh, crappy. As well as your definition of 'crappy' meaning very little since no one person is qualified to say what music is objectively good or objectively bad. It sounds like you just don't like offensive content.

I did say "to me" and "my experience" and that not ALL songs containing explicit lyrics are bad. It's because, well, in my experience most music I've heard with explicit lyrics has been music I haven't liked because I though they were bad so I tend to be suspicious of anything marked with explicit lyrics.

But you know, what the heck. I'll argue that one can be at least somewhat objective (although, of course, not definitive) in calling some music bad based on the quality of the lyrics as written. For example, there is an infamous song called "Ironic" by Alanis Morissette which everyone makes fun of because in the song she gives examples of things that are not actually ironic (merely unfortunate), and which show that she didn't demonstrate through the lyrics a clear understanding of irony. In this song you've got a good case if you argue the lyrics aren't good.

Now, speaking about explicit lyrics specifically, I'd argue that many explicit words are simply not very poetic, that is, they don't evoke imagery as much as they fill in the space. It's often the difference between showing versus telling. ("I clenched my fists and screamed." vs "I was ****ing angry.") Generally, showing is seen as the better option to create imagery, as well as make your writing interesting.

All of this if unrelated, for instance, to a person's enjoyment of the music or the quality of the singing of the lyrics. I'm sure Adele could sing the phone book and it would sound really good, but it would be because of her voice and singing talent and not what she was singing. It might well be a very enjoyable song, but compared to someone of equal talent singing similar song with more poetic lyrics it would be hard to say the phone book song was just as good. Obviously cursing and phone books aren't the same thing, but you get what I'm trying to say. (I hope you do anyway.)

I have tried listening to some of the censored versions of songs that I like, but they turned out to be butchered rhythmically in my opinion. I'm sure that isn't the case with every song, but personally I prefer to have the song as it was written and without alterations. If that means listening explicit lyrics or themes then so be it.

I always prefer the explicit versions, because, as Shucklulz said above me, I like to listen to the music unaltered. After getting used to the regular version, the 'clean' version just sounds funny! :P

If you feel as though they're just there just fill in gaps, Scarf, then you're listening to generally shoddy music. I can see how you made the jump to avoiding all profanity, but I'm afraid that you're merely acting on pigeon superstition. That is assuming that it isn't a stigma towards profanity that's preventing you from appreciating them.

To use Alanis as an example again, after hearing her terrible misuse of the word ironic would you then go and avoid every song that has examples of irony in them on the basis that they're most likely incorrect?

If you cannot appreciate explicit language, then you do not understand it's purpose yet. Used in the right situation they are some of the most powerful words you can have in your arsenal.

I believe that the explicitness of a song should be only ever be a problem if it's being played to a audience too young to understand the gravity of the words they're hearing.

To use Alanis as an example again, after hearing her terrible misuse of the word ironic would you then go and avoid every song that has examples of irony in them on the basis that they're most likely incorrect?

I brought that up as an example of the idea of lyrics being objectively good or bad - something which I don't think many people agree with on principle - and like I said, I believe you can be objective when talking about good or bad lyrics. That was just my basis for saying then that you can talk about the artistic merits of explicit lyrics. I'm anti- bad music. I don't think all explicit lyrics are bad (which I had thought I'd gotten across with all the qualifiers I used), but that they tend toward bad because I think it's more limited than other language.

Explicit to me means I take it as something with either sexual themes, or what's defined by society to be profanity. I always buy the explicit version of a song, because that's how the song was meant to be listened to. Clean versions are usually awkward and cater to radio. You can tell because of what they do to the cursing in a song that it wasn't meant to be listened to that way, with weird sounds that they play over top of it. Seems like an after thought and its hardly ever done right. I don't appreciate a clean version of a song over the explicit. I feel it destroys the artistic integrity of it.

I think protecting the children from hearing or seeing words is the most ridiculous thing we do as a society, especially when we severely under-estimate them and they probably are aware of the words by the time we start to worry about that, because they've been saying it with their friends for years. That's not to say that I don't think songs with suggestive themes (like a rap song, for instance, depicting a rape of a woman) shouldn't be censored. But a regular pop song with one or two curse words in it about nothing in particular? Give me a break.

Profanities in songs don't bother me too much if they're included for effect, but when they're included just for the sake of swearing then it makes me lose quite a bit of respect for the song. It's not that the words are offensive or anything, more just that it gives the feeling that the artist was too lazy to think of a more appropriate word to use instead. If the profanity is being used as a method of emphasising a message or tone in the song or two big up a lyric or two then that's perfectly okay so I'd rather they swore than not, but otherwise I think songs are generally better without resorting to profanities; to me it just seems somewhat lazy and slightly disrespectful to the listener if they're including explicit words for the sake of having explicit words in the song or due to not wanting to think of a more appropriate synonym.

To me "explicit" means "Warning! Contains crappy music." That's my experience of music with explicit lyrics labels for the most part. My experience is that explicit lyrics are disproportionately found in bad music. But I don't buy music without having an idea of what I'm getting first, whether it's from listening to some of the songs first or just being familiar with the artist, so a label of "explicit" isn't really going to change my mind since I'm already 99% sure of what I'm doing.

Can I maybe introduce you to channel orange? There are a lot more but they're mainly rap which isn't really palatable to everyone but the one I linked is R&B and I'm honestly not sure how someone could consider that album crappy music.

Explicit doesn't mean anything to me other than that there's excessive profanity throughout an album I guess to shield kids from it, even though they discuss sexual themes in a lot of pop songs too and those aren't often censored [though VEVO will censor names of guns and drugs <333]. I agree with Patchisou Yutohru though; I buy the explicit version with the actual intended lyrics, buying a clean version unless you're a really young kid or something is just ridiculous.

I don't mind explicit lyrics; I'm sure I've listened and enjoyed quite a lot of stuff that would make even the most hardened rap listener tremble with fear. I also don't mind profanity so long as they're used in the right way/mood and not for the sake of just being there, kind of like it is in this song. By the way, profanity or not, Limp Bizkit sucks anyway. Just throwing that out there.

I don't like it when I receive something clean, though. To me "clean" means "Some people don't like swearing because they think it's bad and/or uncreative, so we blanked it out even though doing so kind of throws off the song both lyrically and musically."

There's a word I use for people like this: cussophobes.

Being a cussophobe is one of my biggest pet peeves ever. Here's something you all should know about me; I don't cuss every 2 seconds like some southern Californian, but I do like to throw around an F-bomb occasionally and it bugs the crap out of me when it bugs someone. I don't have a swear jar; I have a censorship jar (this site's rules are filling it up rather quick, I might add). Blanking out swear words in anything else is another pet peeve of mine, especially when you replace it with something that doesn't make any sense.

Really, the only time I get truly pissed at swearing is when someone uses the wrong word in the wrong context. Like for example: "I f***ing hate Linkin Park" will not incur my wrath. "I pissing hate Linkin Park" will.

Also, the lyrics don't have to have swearing to be considered explicit. It can also refer to content which some people might find offensive (and in turn, it'll likely be something I enjoy). Two examples I can give are the albums "South of Heaven" and "Seasons in the Abyss", both by the thrash metal band Slayer. I just pooled through the lyric sheets on both records; nary a swear word in sight. Why do they have PA labels? Well...just look up "Skeletons of Society", "Silent Scream" or any lyrics to most of their songs pre-Divine Intervention and you'll find out why ("Angel of Death" would be a good place to start).

Keep in mind, this is coming from someone who pays more attention to the music itself (as in, instrumentation) than the lyrics.

Like others have said, I've always taken the word explicit in regards to music as to mean the content could be viewed as vulgar or inappropriate, such as sexual references or profanities used in a large quantity. It's never had any relation to the music being 'bad,' because good doesn't mean clean and bad does not necessarily mean riddled with profanities.

If you feel as though they're just there just fill in gaps, Scarf, then you're listening to generally shoddy music. I can see how you made the jump to avoiding all profanity, but I'm afraid that you're merely acting on pigeon superstition. That is assuming that it isn't a stigma towards profanity that's preventing you from appreciating them.

To use Alanis as an example again, after hearing her terrible misuse of the word ironic would you then go and avoid every song that has examples of irony in them on the basis that they're most likely incorrect?

If you cannot appreciate explicit language, then you do not understand it's purpose yet. Used in the right situation they are some of the most powerful words you can have in your arsenal.

I believe that the explicitness of a song should be only ever be a problem if it's being played to a audience too young to understand the gravity of the words they're hearing.

Even though this is off-topic, I just want to throw this out there - Ironic is pretty brilliant because it's a song entitled Ironic and written about irony without including any ounce of irony in it. That's the genius behind it, so I wouldn't put it along the lines of "terrible misuse".

Personally, I don't even care that much. I'm so desensitized that I listen to whatever without regards to the warnings if the song is intended for myself. My only real use for the "explicit" label is for keeping that stuff away from really young kids but then again, I would rather listen to the song itself first and use my own judgement to tell if it's appropriate for them.

I don't mind. I usually listen to the song on YouTube before buying a song on iTunes anyway...unless its my favorite band's new album. I don't agree with the people who say explicit music is terrible. It's not just all party/Gangsta songs. Plus an amazing song could have one swear word.

I'm a DJ at my college's radio station, and we can't legally play songs with profanities or explicit lyrics, so if I enjoy a song that happens to have swear words in it, I try to find a clean version so that I can play it.

Otherwise, the language in a song doesn't really matter to me at all, as long as the music is good and the lyrics are meaningful.

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